A sintered powder metallurgy (PM) part can be finished or treated just like any other metal part to achieve desired characteristics-corrosion resistance, improve strength ans hardness, surface wear resistance, edge-sharpness relief, porosity sealing, and control of size and surface finish. Plating, coating, deburring, welding, furnace brazing, heat treating, and stem treating are among secondary operations that are used successfully in the process of fabricating finished PM parts. Unlikes parts made using other metal forming processes, powder metallurgy parts can be […]

One important tenet of Design for Manufacturing / Design for Assembly is the idea that the mechanical engineer and the industrial designer should choose the manufacturing processes that will be used to mass produce custom parts before finalizing the design for that part (and everything that it touches). Here are some common processes that are used to produce plastic and metal parts in consumer electronics and industrial automation applications. Some post-processes for plastic parts Sometimes plastic parts have to go […]

There are two categories of finishing operations: those that produce minor dimensional corrections, and surface treatment processes. Coining, sizing and straightening are commonly used to improve the dimensional accuracy of forgings. When tolerances closer than those that can be economically produced in the forging die are specified, coining and sizing operations are often employed. These processes cause plastic deformation of the forging, either by striking or squeezing a defined area. Coining may be performed either hot or cold, and can […]

Warm forging is performed with the workpiece heated to a range that is generally above the work hardening temperature and below the temperature at which scale forms. The process fills the niche between the closer tolerance, but sometimes expensive cold forging process and the somewhat lower precision hot forging process. It is being used to produce close tolerance components in steel alloys that were not feasible or impossible by cold forging. It is also being used to produce components very […]

Cold Forging Process Cold forging is one of the most widely used chipless forming processes, often requiring no machining other than drilling. The commonly accepted definition is the forming or forging of a bulk material at room temperature with no heating of the initial slug or inter-stages. The term “no heating” does not include in-process annealing, which may be performed at intermediate stages to relieve the effects of work hardening. The process produces greater dimensional accuracy than hot forming, and […]

Injection molding is a manufacturing process used to produce single parts and products using various materials, most commonly thermosetting and thermoplastic polymers. Today, injection molding is the most popular method of manufacturing parts and is used to produce a variety of everyday plastic products, including packaging, toys, telephones, bottle lids, chairs and many more. Injection molding is also used to manufacture complex, small metal parts, known as Metal Injection Molding (MIM). But just how does injection molding work? The machine An injection […]

Representing one of the advanced metal processing techniques, MIM (Metal Injection Molding) was created by fusing traditional plastic injection molding technology with powder metallurgy. Injection molding using metal dies makes it easy to manufacture otherwise hard to machine parts, including micro, precision, intricately shaped, and 3D parts. MIM is also superbly suited for mass production, as demonstrated by our ability to manufacture at rates ranging from 5,000 to 1 million pieces per month. MIM works best for parts that weigh […]

3D printing is an additive manufacturing process that works best for functional prototypes, complex designs, reducing multipart assemblies, and end-use applications. 3D printing technology is rapidly changing how manufacturers are creating concept models and end-use parts. One of the fastest growing applications is utilizing 3D printing technology for the tooling of complex and low volume composite parts. Boeing and other companies in the aerospace and automotive industries are finding that using composite materials instead of metal, greatly reduces the weight and […]

Making injection molded prototypes is both an art and a science. High levels of technical expertise and attention to detail are required to prevent small mistakes from costing companies big money when it comes to mass-production of novel parts. Preventing such a circumstance is all about highly competent design. This article discusses some of the molding defects that can occur in a part during injection molding, and ways to fix and avoid them. Design shortcomings we will discuss include: Flow […]

Eyeglass frames are made out of many different composite materials and formulas, but the basic groupings are metal and plastic. In plastics, zyl is the most common although lower quality plastics are used in the cheaper frames. Nylon is often used in sport sunglasses due to its impact resistance and flexibility. Among the metals, monel is most common, followed by titanium, stainless steel, nickel silver, alpaca, and aluminum. Zyl Zyl is a short name for the material cellulose acetate, which […]